PIMCO Global Economic Advisor Joachim Fels explains how these “3 C’s” have the power to pivot global economic growth in 2016.

The almost seven-year-old “BBB economic expansion” of the global economy has been underwhelming all along, and this year it will likely feel even more BBB: bumpy, below-par and brittle. PIMCO is forecasting calendar year 2016 global real GDP growth of 2% to 2.5%. That’s slower than in 2015, which was slower than 2014. That said, we don’t see a global or U.S. recession looming.

Beneath the surface of slow overall growth, this is still a multi-speed, multi-faceted global economy. Economic and policy divergence and political...